The weird and wonderful Tour de France circus begins with the Grand Depart in Lille on Saturday, and this year’s route is notable for its simplicity: the Tour will be held exclusively in France for the first time in five years, finishing in Paris on 27 July. It ends with a twist on stage 21 after organisers threw in a triple loop of the steep cobbles of Montmartre on the 50th anniversary of the race’s first finish on the Champs-Elysees, once a wacky idea but now such an integral part of the canvas.
The Tour loves an anniversary and you may notice tributes to Bernard Hinault sprinkled through the route, 40 years after his fifth and final yellow jersey in 1985, a nice touch even if it serves to underline the long, long French wait for another home winner. You can bet Hinault would not have predicted Slovenia would be the dominant nation in the Alps and Pyrenees 40 years on, not least because it didn’t yet exist.
